NOTEBOOK -- steve marble

Three years ago, the city of Costa Mesa coughed up $7.5 million to buy a

rugged 18-acre wedge of property known -- for reasons that were obvious

back in those days -- as the Farm.

Light towers were erected. A sprinkler system was installed. Buildings

were built. Parking spaces were marked. Traffic lights went up. And a

glorious day for every young soccer player in Costa Mesa was dawning.

There was only one problem.

The city didn’t know how to grow grass.

And even now, a spring, a summer and an autumn after it was scheduled to

open, the sprawling soccer complex sits idle, a grand plan undone by

weeds and the city’s green thumb.

How, you might wonder, can the city not be able to grow grass. They can

build roads. They can trim trees. And they can pass laws, one tiny one

right after another. But they can’t grow grass?

How hard could it be to grow grass? Orchids? Sure, tough little brutes.

Roses? I’ve snuffed a few myself. But grass?

For most weekend gardeners the problem is pretty much the opposite. You

have to cut it, pull it out of the nooks and crannies in the driveway,

rip it out of the flower beds. Growing it is usually the least of our

problems. Controlling it. That’s the challenge.

But the city has met its match in grass.

The town’s first efforts at growing grass at the Farm were pretty much a

misfire. Rather than using sod -- long strips of healthy, green grass

that can be rolled out like a stretch of carpet -- the city opted to

sprinkle clumps of Bermuda here and there in hopes it would take root and

spread.

Unfortunately, the city picked a bad month to get into the grass-growing

business. September. Bermuda likes warm weather. The city had hoped that

autumn and winter would be kind to the grass. It wasn’t.

Instead of grass, the city got weeds. And thanks to the nice sprinkler

system that had been installed, the weeds got plenty of water. They

flourished. They grew mighty, and they grew strong. Instead of grooming

fields capable of supporting soccer matches at the Fairview Avenue

facility, the city had inadvertently turned the complex into what it used

to be -- a cow pasture.

Plans for soccer this past spring were scrapped while city gardeners

sized up the situation. They weeded, they sprinkled more clumps of

Bermuda and they waited, as any farmer might do.

But the Bermuda -- known in grass-growing circles as a hardy turf that

holds its own under the thundering feet of athletes -- resisted. The city

blamed the Bermuda’s timid ways on the cool summer. Bermuda likes it hot,

they said. The summer had been cool.

And, in due course, it became evident that the complex would not be ready

for the fall season either.

As it now stands, four of the six soccer fields are good to go, though

there is still a resilient population of weeds that is making a valiant

stand. But the other two rectangles are doing poorly, limping, as it

were.

With a little luck and a little sun, the fields will be ready for play

next spring, a year and a half after the first planting.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of town, another grass controversy has

taken root. The regulars at the city’s dog park want the facility covered

in grass, while city leaders have pushed for a wood-chip covering.

You get the idea that the city just doesn’t like grass all that much.

Maybe it scares them.

The dog owners argued that their pooches preferred grass, just like

soccer players might. The wood chips, they pointed out, are

uncomfortable. Dogs, they argued, could get splinters in their paws.

The city finally gave in and agreed that grass it was. And then the city

did the smartest thing it’s done all year. Perhaps glancing over their

shoulder at the spotty soccer complex, they asked the dog owners if they

wouldn’t mind growing the grass themselves.

Smart thinking.

* STEVE MARBLE is the managing editor of Times Community News and can be

reached at o7 Steve.Marble@latimes.com.f7